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2022-12-31-accounts

Charity Number 1133819

Annual Report and Accounts to the year ending 31 December 2022

Registered office

Mexborough Life Church New Oxford Road MEXBOROUGH South Yorkshire S64 0JL

Contents

Trustees Annual Report

Independent Examiner’s report

Statement of Financial activities

Report of the Trustees for the year 2021

Report of the Trustees for the year 1 January to 31 December 2022

Our purpose and activities

The objective of the charity is for the benefit of the public:

The vision

Our Mission is: Making Jesus Christ known.

To help us put this into practice we have six key values that underpin all our activities:

The activities

To do this we had several activities happening throughout 2022:

Achievements through our activities from the year

The church believes that the Christian gospel is good news which should have a positive impact on the local community. Furthermore, the promotion of Christian faith comes on the back of positive intervention in the life of the local community, demonstrating the gospel in both word and deed. The church also believes that a key role it has is to serve the local community in provision of services that may not otherwise be provided and in doing so introduce people to the Christian faith.

Report of the Trustees for the year 2021

Weekly Sunday services

The church maintained its weekly Sunday service throughout the year with services continuing to be broadcast on-line and in-person. With a new minister joining the Church in October, there has been an increase in the spiritual development and involvement of people in church life and its activities from within the congregation.

Mid-weekly meetings: Prayer, Bible Study and Worship

A regular pattern of Bible Study and Prayer meetings continued throughout the year - with themed studies.

Studies were led by both the minister and others from within the fellowship and attracted on average around 15 people.

The prayer meetings were usually held on the first Tuesday of the month and were the culmination of a day of prayer and fasting. The prayer topics were set by the Prayer Coordinator and then the Pastor, in conjunction with the leadership. The average attendance was around 12.

The worship team continued to meet throughout the year and drew new people into this area of church ministry.

Weekly Community Toddler Group “Little Acorns”

Our ‘Little Acorns’ toddler group continues to thrive each Thursday (during term time) will an average attendance of 25-30 parents/carers bringing their children.

Sunday School and Youth

Our Sunday School, called ‘Roots’ began to meet every Sunday from December.

An alternative Halloween Party for children was held on the 31[st] October and was well-attended.

The new minister went into the local Secondary School and conducted 4 Christmas-themed assemblies.

Website and Social Media

We continued to provide our services live online to those who have not returned from the COVID outbreak and for others who are on holiday or unable to attend the Sunday service.

Community action

We started to run a small ‘Food Bank’ (working with Rotherham Food Bank) from the church. Some needy individuals/families who attend our Drop-in on a Friday “warm welcome space” have been helped.

“Warm welcome space” drop-in runs from 12.00-2.00 each Friday and provides free hot drinks, food, games and an opportunity to chat. This was started in November 2022.

In November and December, during the World Cup football tournament, we showed the England matches in the church, provided snacks and drinks and some from the community enjoyed these times.

Report of the Trustees for the year 2021

Christmas activities

We did do some carol singing and leaflet giving outside in the area to raise the real meaning of Christmas. We held Christmas activities for families and for the Little Acorns children. As stated, the minister undertook some assemblies on a Christmas theme at the local secondary school.

Tithing our income

The church continued to donate on a monthly basis into the work of a church leadership network in Zambia, pursuing the same objectives as we have. The balance of the income tithe will go to similar objective projects as decided by the Trustees. In 2022 this was sent to put a church roof on and provide the generator for a church building in Iraq.

Future Plans

The leaders and church took-on a temporary pastor in October this year. This has now become a permanent role since May 2023. There will also be more activities starting in 2023 – ladies’ group, youth activities etc.

The church is also looking into improving and extending our facilities on New Oxford Road building.

Volunteers

We cannot run without our volunteers, and we had the following volunteers (some people in more than one role):

Structure and Governance

Type of governing document: trust deed, Wesleyan Reform Union Reference Deed

How the charity is constituted: A church of the Wesleyan Reform Union

Trustees, Key Volunteers, Staff and Advisors

Trustee name Office (if any) – all
voluntary		 Dates acted if not for whole year
Jennifer Copley Acting Chair, Treasurer
and Payroll Officer
Lorraine Slater
Sarah Collins Secretary
Eric Mugabo Until 11thSeptember 2022

Trustee selection methods: Recommendation made by and approved by the Leadership Team and Trustees; approached by the trustees, to ascertain their willingness to serve their appointment; and approved by the members of the church/charity.

Report of the Trustees for the year 2021

Report of the Trustees for the year 2021
Staff/Volunteer role Details
Leaders (Volunteers) During 2022 the two volunteer leaders continued to create the
strategy to enable the church to continue during the challenging
times brought about by the last few years. Until March 2022 and
since October 2022, they have had the support of a paid minister
(as below)
Minister/Pastor/Senior Leader Current permanent minister has been in position since the 1st
October 2022. Gives the key vision for the church, teaching and
high-level pastoral care to its members.
Type of adviser Name
Legal AFVS (Now Trust Practice) until October when
felt the advice they offer for free can be gained
from internal knowledge.
CLAS – see below
Wesleyan Reform Union
https://thewru.com/about-
us/confession-of-faith/		 Our denomination, which also connects with
CLAS (Churches Legal advisory service)

Policies and Procedures

During the year we started our large review of our Health and Safety policy – making sure the paperwork was in line with the actual arrangements put in place and working towards areas where work still to do. The draft is expected to be agreed in 2023.

We also reviewed our Safeguarding Policy and Employment policies, contracts and handbook.

We have the following policies some* of which are still awaiting formal approval after changes in 2019:

Report of the Trustees for the year 2021

Financial Review

Reserves

Ongoing ability

As reported last year the ongoing ability to significant increase our bank balances continued as we only paid a minister for 6 months of 2022. Again the extra monies raised for this was set aside on purpose to take advantage of this time and God’s goodness, to support our pastor recruitment and provide any new minister security.

Our normal needed reserves are 3 months regular (including monthly proportions of annual/quarterly costs) are: just under £10,000

Our unrestricted funds, as at 31/12/22, stand at £28,594, well within this value, (the additional £18,500 which is determined to support our pastor recruitment for a 3-year salary – which is now in place - while the congregation and its giving increase to cover all ongoing costs on a monthly basis.

Please note that, since mid-year and more towards the end of the year congregation attendance and growth have occurred and look promising for 2023 reserves. We are currently considering how we can re-allocate reserves as the ongoing costs since about December 2022 are now almost supported on a monthly basis.

Restricted and delegated reserves

The restricted funds, mainly for the building improvements, stand at £19,022 and the designated money, which is our tithe* we give away to charities of the same goal of spreading the gospel, stands at £0 as at 31 December 2023 as it was all given away on the last day of December.

Reserves held elsewhere

Also as stated last year due to a sale of a building we have additional financial resource available to us at WRU some for capital purposes and some for outreach. These are not within these accounts and remain with the WRU but have been set aside for us. £50k of this has been set aside for supporting the minsters wages ongoing until we can grow enough to support the wage on our own. The rest is set aside for the building improvements we are planning.

Overall changes in funds

Overall the increase in overall funds has gone from £37.9k to £47.6k, with unrestricted balances from £19k to £28.6k (this is wholly to do with only employing a minister for 6 months as the reserves increase is less than the saved salary). During the periods where a minister was employed, three of the six months we made a surplus (cash basis), but one of these included a backdated grant which otherwise would be in deficit.

However, as stated above as at December 2022 we are now almost breaking-even with our regular normal giving, on a monthly basis.

It is to be noted, that due to volunteers (started late 2021), M365 for charities, changing our internet provider and creating our own office space this year we have saved £1.3k from last year (annual equivalent saving of £2.1k).

Our restricted funds have not moved much in the year, the £2,550 value that came in was owed from 2021 spending. The £1,000 towards the improvements made to the online experience via technical equipment is still to be claimed in expenses.

The rest of the balance is for the building project (94.2% of the whole restricted balance), which has had delays and setbacks, but the Leaders and Trustees still have a strategy to bring the building into a better state to serve our needs as we outreach to the community.

Report of the Trustees for the year 2021

Within reserves policy?

So as at the end of 2022 we were well within our reserves policy, and now even reached the 3-year amount agreed set aside for wages for the future plans, as explained in the section above.

The trustees aim to ensure the charity will be able to continue to fulfil its charitable objectives even if there is a temporary shortfall in income or unexpected expenditure. The trustees will endeavour not to set aside funds unnecessarily. The 3-year minister wages is being set aside because in 2022 if expenditure were as normal (i.e. 12 months of a paster), we would have made a £5k-£6k deficit (£10k-£11k in 2021) and so we wish to cover this while we have been able to save money.

As stated above in 2023 we have been looking to now release those 3-year wages reserves as the congregation has increased, praise be to God far quicker than we could “ever ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20) so that we already cover the usual expenditure from normal income.

Accounts - income and expenditure comments

Our funding this year came purely from: free will offerings and donations mainly from church members (81.7%); grant from the WRU to cover shortfall on minister salaries (7.1%); some hire rental (8.8%); the remaining was from donations from those who access our weekly activities. Of this income 10% of it was given for restricted purposes.

*The Trustees designate 10% of the gross unrestricted donations. This is for our biblical tithe principal to organisations doing the same work in promoting the Christian faith.

The restricted income all furthered our charity objectives.

Of the unrestricted income we used this to:

1. Further our charities activities within our charity (66.1%) – note this doesn’t include the 12.1% designated unrestricted giving to further our same charity aims at another charity

  1. For saving towards future minister to further our charitable activities even further (27.7%)

  2. To ensure we are insured and following legal requirements for the charity law (2.6%)

  3. Trading costs to raise further funds (3.6%) which raised about 3x the apportioned cost.

Overall our spending was 93.1% on charitable activities.

Assets

As part of clearing an office space at the church for our paid minister to stop the rental we paid for space for this, next door, we have had a rearrangement of office equipment. As part of this the following assets – previously (2021) on the asset listing, on page two of the accounts – were disposed of as stated:

disposed of as stated:
Asset Why disposed – any value for it
Office electrical equipment The former large printer was no longer necessary – as purchasing
printing is much more economical and it was taking up unnecessary
space in the small office space which we cleared out to save costs of
renting space elsewhere. This had been donated to us over 15 years
ago second-hand.
It was replaced by a desktop one, much smaller and does all we need it
to do. See assets purchased below.
We purchased the following assets:
Office electrical equipment Printer photocopier to replace big one £64.99
office equipment: small lockable files To ensure data protection we purchased separate lockable files for gift
aid (2023) and safeguarding (2022) which go inside the general locked
filing cabinet. 2022 value=£23.01

CC16a

No (if any)

Charity Name

Mexborough Life Church and Centre (New Oxford Road) 1133819

Receipts and payments accounts For the period Period start date To Period end date from 01/01/2022 31/12/2022

----- Start of picture text -----
Section A Receipts and payments
Unrestricted
Restricted funds Designed funds Total funds Last year
funds
to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £
A1 Receipts
Voluntary Income 25,480 1,000 2,822 29,302 29,209
Activities for generating funds 3,143 - - 3,143 230
Charitable Activities 711 - - 711 62
Investment Income 23 39 7 69 2
Other Incoming Resources - 2,550 - 2,550 -
Sub total (Gross income
3,589 2,829 35,775 29,503
for AR) [ 29,357 ]
A2 Asset and investment sales, (see table).
- - - -
Sub total - - - - -
Total receipts 29,357 3,589 2,829 35,775 29,503
A3 Payments
Cost of Generating Voluntary Income
- - - - -
Charitable Activities 19,417 965 3,886 24,268 23,644
Governance Costs 754 - - 754 1,520
Fundraising Trading Costs 1,046 - - 1,046 72
- - - - -
Sub total 21,217 965 3,886 26,068 25,236
A4 Asset and investment purchases, (see table)
- - - -
Sub total - - - - -
Total payments 21,217 965 3,886 26,068 25,236
Net of
receipts/(payments) 8,140 2,624 - 1,057 9,707 4,267
A5 Transfers between funds -
reversal last year cash basis
of grant spending 1,700 - 1,700 - - -
A6 B/F funds - designated
true b/f that in accounts shown
as general - 244 244
A6 B/f Cash funds 18,998 18,098 813 37,909 33,642
Cash funds this year end
28,594 19,022 - 47,616 37,909
----- End of picture text -----

Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period

Categories
B1 Cash funds
B3 Investment assets
B5 Liabilities
B4 Assets retained for the
charity’s own use
B2 Other monetary assets
Signed by one or two trustees on
behalf of all the trustees		 Details
Bank Account
CASH
Signature
Old highthorn PA equipment at NoR
Hoovers (2) and cleaning equipment
Office electrical equipment: copier/printer (2),
shredder
Heater in NoR
Baptism tank: hot tub and pump etc
Crafts and games
NOR Lecturn and Storage boxes/drawer
Various DVDs and Books
3 old Laptops - various uses
2 more recent Laptops
Football table on lower hall stage
Portable sound/projection/light. equip.
office equipment: small lockable files (1)
Kitchen and café equipment NoR
Toys and equipment for mums and tots group
Chairs/Tables at NoR
New Piano at NoR
3 TVs (2 on stands)
Pool table on lower hall stage
Portable nets and various balls: NoR storage
Christmas Tree and decorations
Old Musical instruments that are ours: Old Piano
at NoR; keyboard; old drum kit
4 Speakers and 1 amp
Conference Chairs and desks at MYC

New Oxford Road Building (legally belonging to
Wesleyan Reform Union)
office equipment: chair cupboard/cabinets
Wireless Mircophone
(agree balances with receipts and payments
account(s))
Owed back
Total cash funds
PA equipment at NoR		 Unrestricted
funds
to nearest £
28,248
346
28,594
OK
-
-
Fund to which
asset belongs
General
General
General
General
General
Youth/Outreach
Outreach
General
General
General
General
General
Print Name		 Restricted
funds
Designated
funds
to nearest £
to nearest £
19,022
-
-
-
-
-
19,022
-
OK
OK
-
-
-
-
Cost (only items
since 2019)
Current value
(optional)
-
-
-
-
-
-
960
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
380
23
65
106
478
-
g
Date of approval		 Designated
funds
to nearest £
-
-
-
OK
Jennifer Copley approval of
revised

Independent examiner's report on the accounts

Section A Independent Examiner’s Report

Report to the trustees/ New Oxford Road Church (Mexborough Life Church and Centre) members of

On accounts for the year 31/12/2022 Charity no 1133819 ended (if any) Set out on pages CC16A Sections A and B

Respective The charity's trustees are responsible for the preparation of the accounts. responsibilities of The charity’s trustees consider that an audit is not required for this year trustees and examiner under section 144 of the Charities Act 2011 (the Charities Act) and that an independent examination is needed. It is my responsibility to:

Basis of independent My examination was carried out in accordance with general Directions given examiner’s statement by the Charity Commission. An examination includes a review of the accounting records kept by the charity and a comparison of the accounts presented with those records. It also includes consideration of any unusual items or disclosures in the accounts, and seeking explanations from the trustees concerning any such matters. The procedures undertaken do not provide all the evidence that would be required in an audit, and consequently no opinion is given as to whether the accounts present a ‘true and fair’ view and the report is limited to those matters set out in the statement below.

1

March 2012

IER